Aphrodisiac for the Wicked
by Moonraker One
Summary: There's an old saying that weirder things have happened. Well, Akiko and Hikaru have only met for ten minutes, and already Hikaru gains abilities that are out of this world, and Akiko becomes Akira, a boy. SUPERHERO STORY
1. Prologue Chapter 1

Aphrodisiac for the Wicked  
by Moonraker One

PROLOGUE

Two lost souls, hopelessly intertwined by fate, met under the star of love. Neither one of them cared that they were the same gender. Their mutual feelings would push them to do what no other could...

The small hands reading it thrust it away, with a disgusted look on her face. "Daddy, why would you write something that gross?"

Sitting across from her, her father addressed the situation. "I always wanted to write a romance story, and I figured girls like gay romance between guys." He noticed she was giving him a disturbed look. "Well, Akiko, look at it this way: when you grow up, you might find it less disgusting, because of...well...'girl feelings' you'll get."

She looked at the cover of the book. "Daddy, why're you writing it, just because people like that stuff? Shouldn't you write something you want to?"

"Akiko," her father responded, "what better than for the chairman of Toya Gaming, incorporated, than to expand his skills into writing? Believe me, you'll understand needing to please the public some day."

Akiko stuck out her tongue. "Boys kissing might be ok to people, but it's still gross. Boys are disgusting and sloppy and, gross!"

The elder Toya chuckled at his daughter's response. "Who knows? Someday you might end up marrying a boy."

"Sir!" the driver stated, lowering the median. "We've arrived!"

"It's time, Akiko. Daddy's got to seal another deal." The father and daughter stepped out of the limo. Akiko let her long, dark hair fall down to her shoulders. She wanted to find someone to play with; her father was such a good go player that she seldom had the opportunity to struggle against an equal opponent. Then again, being the daughter of an international gaming products corporation didn't exactly make for a normal Japanese girl's life. Koyo Toya, the father, looked around at the rural scenery. He'd grown up in situations like this agricultural community, and he had struggled his damndest to get out of it. He'd founded and built a massive gaming company, and he looked to spread his horizons. "Go play, Akiko, but don't wander too far off. I'll be in this building over here."

"Okay, daddy!" she squeezed out before dashing off. Her father would be talking to a man who wanted to start a multi-community go club, but didn't have the equipment. Koyo would not only sell him materials, but smooth talk his way into building a factory here that used wood from the farms' leftover to build go, shogi, and other game boards. Immoral? Very much so. Good business? Of course.

Several hundred meters away, a young boy was coming back from his private tutoring. Around here, there was only one public school district, and it lacked the kind of personal touch as what he received. One or more of the mothers would take a group of children and give them the personal attention they deserved, rather than an overcrowded classroom with an apathetic teacher who could frankly care less. He dropped his backpack on the porch chair and took off his shoes, running into the house.

"Hikaru!" his mother bellowed. "No running in the house!"

Hikaru ignored her as he dashed upstairs. "Sorry, mom!" Tearing into his room, he began rifling through his belongings for a set of clothes that it didn't matter if they got dirty. He found a pair of boots suitable for the mud, and donned the entire set of clothes save for the shoes. He set his school shoes into the holder and tore down the steps.

"Hikaru! What did I tell you? Now if you're going to play, get some food!" He received several pieces of the fish she was cooking, and stuffed it into his mouth as he ran off; how could a kid be expected to care about manners, when the mysteries of the universe were awaiting, just outside the door?

He performed a leap onto the porch that Spiderman would approve of, then quickly donned his boots and leapt down the short stairs to the ground below. His short dark hair ruffled, with his golden blonde bangs like neon streamers as he rushed on. He felt like a trillion yen; little did he know, he stood minutes away from something he wouldn't comprehend for a while.

Hikaru Shindo, youngest and only child of the Shindo family, tore through the hard dirt in between the crops as he met the wind head on. He covered a distance of a few hundred meters before taking a dirt path up a hill so he wouldn't run into a corn field.

Opposite him, by about three hundred meters, stood Akiko Toya, wandering into a corn field. She moved forward and brushed the tall rows of growing corn, fascinated by the fact that, despite looking uniform and conforming, there were subtle differences. She heard the sound of a boy cheerfully shouting as he dashed. "Ugh, boys are gross," she whispered to herself. Both of them were completely oblivious to a large flying object, brightly lit ablaze by the planet's upper atmosphere, sailing downward towards the field outside the corn.

Defying the air, it flew downward to meet the planet head-on, shaking the ground for kilometers around and throwing a huge cloud of dirt in all directions before the planet finally won the argument and the object stopped tunneling.

Akiko found herself tripping over backwards onto her butt by the shockwave. She shook her head, complained at her now dirty dress, then charged on.

Hikaru very nearly fell off the ledge, but recovered in time, then dashed on towards the object. Maybe it was an alien coming to visit! Maybe they would give him some sort of ray gun that would shoot purple energy beams! Such were the thoughts flying through his head.

The two of them ran forward, at first completely ignoring each other because of the sight before them. They then, however, began to combine their thought patterns to figure out what was going on.

"You think it's an alien?" inquired Akiko, who'd been taught not to believe in the such, but that was before she saw this.

"I hope so!" shouted Hikaru. "Maybe they've got all sorts of forbidden technology!"

"All this dirt everywhere is so messy! Can't they figure out how to land softer?" Hikaru laughed at her statement.

"Maybe it's an escaped criminal from some alien prison!"

"Eee!" Akiko cried momentarily in fear.

"Aw, come on. What harm can it be?"

No sooner had Hikaru spoke, than a cloud of an orangish-red mist came out of the spherical, golden craft. Unbeknownst to them, it contained technology that would last only for a few minutes, but that would be long enough. They each coughed a few times, and then Hikaru noticed a blinking green light on the craft; it then changed to red.

BOOM. An explosion heard for miles around launched them into the corn field.

Many meters away, Koyo saw the billowing smoke coming from just outside the cornfield. "AKIKO!" he screamed, propelling himself out of the house. He, and several of the farmers, ran into the cornfield. "AKIKO!"

"HIKARU!" a mother and father screeched as they ran towards the source of the smoke.

The short-haired boy stood up, brushed the dirt out of his bangs, then quickly felt himself to make sure everything was in the proper order; it was. Furthermore, there was no blood or scrape marks of any kind. He found that weird, but then again, maybe it was the craft. He heard Akiko in pain dozens of meters to his right. He ran to her, arriving in less than a second. This, he found to be extremely unusual, as it seemed as though he had moved hundreds of kilometers an hour.

"Help me, please!" she pleaded to Hikaru. He noticed that a huge chunk of the metal from the craft had fallen on her. Her face was cut and bleeding, and she probably had broken bones. He didn't know what he could do, but he grasped the metal—slightly oblivious to the fact that the sharp, jagged edges weren't even scratching his skin—and jerked as hard as he can, hoping to budge it at least an inch. Well, he certainly moved it, but it wasn't an inch. As soon as he pulled it backwards, he launched it at tremendous speed towards the hill behind him. He looked at his arms; where had this strength come from? He found it so startling that he forgot about the craft, temporarily.

"Akiko!" screeched Koyo. "Are you alright? Daddy's here!" He took his daughter into his arms.

"This nice boy saved me, daddy." Akiko replied. Koyo noticed something weird; his daughter's voice sounded different. It wasn't much deeper, but the timbre had changed dramatically.

"A...Akiko, what happened to you?" He shook his head. "Never mind. Let's take you to the hospital."

Hikaru's parents came to him shortly thereafter. "Hikaru, are you okay?"

He looked at the piece of metal, embedded in the hill. "I hope so," he shot back.

They took him close. "Hikaru, are you hurt?"

He protested. "No, mom! I'm fine. That girl seemed hurt."

In the hospital, about an hour later, the nurse came up to Koyo. "How's Akiko?" he asked.

The nurse lifted the paperwork. "Other than some minor scrapes and some bleeding we stopped, your son will be fine."

"That's so good to hear ma'am," he heard something unusual in her speech. "Wait a minute, what do you mean, 'my son' will be fine?"

She shook her head. "Your son won't be in any harm."

Koyo did not understand. "My Akiko is a girl!"

The nurse closed her eyes, to avoid him seeing her roll them. "Sir, I don't know what's you're talking about, but Akiko Toya, your _son_, will be just fine. In fact, we checked his private parts, it doesn't look like his ability to father children will be affected."

_This can't be happening, _Koyo thought as he rushed into the room. He saw his child, and although at eight years old it is hard to tell, he could see that his child was now a boy. He bowed his head. "Akiko, what's happened to you?"

CHAPTER ONE – Seven years later

Sitting down in his office, a young man of fifteen looked over the place. His father had given him this position in order to examine and test his son's business savvy while going to high school. The young man opened his wallet and examined the picture of him eight years prior. He was very different back then. Not only was his hair longer—currently it hung only to chin height, as originally it was to his shoulders—but also, back then, in every way possible, he was a girl. An alien object landing in a field changed all of that. It struck him as ironic; he used to think boys were gross and disgusting. Now he had the body and mind of one.

"Akira," the voice on his telephone speaker stated, "you've got school in almost an hour."

He held a button down. "Got it, dad." He scooped up his backpack and trudged out of the corporate office.

The young Toya walked on, his suit's tie blowing in the mild wind. He hadn't discovered it until a few years ago, but just as in the case of that boy that helped him, he also gained a power. He could manipulate life; healing the sick and also, dying plants as well. Not only that, but with enough energy, he could actually revive a dead person.

About three hundred kilometers away, in a farming community now made famous for its alien craft, a boy with dark, short hair and golden bangs stood inside a barn with a stack of wood on each side of him. He had logs on one side, sections on the other. He sat a log section on the platform. He then took a metal triangle, and placed it blade-side down against the wood. Then he raised his fist high above him, and punched the triangle; the wood split into two halves, which he then took into his hands and tore them into two smaller halves, placing the four pieces on the pile. "Hikaru!" a voice cried. He stopped making firewood.

"Yes, mom?"

"You've got an hour before your first day of the semester, son," his mother yelled from the outside. "Can you make it?"

Hikaru grabbed his backpack. "I just wanted to chop some more wood so dad wouldn't have to; I've got plenty of time."

His mother kissed him. "I love you, sweetie. And be careful about your abilities!"

He took off at thousands of kilometers per hour, yelling, "I will mom!" right before his departure. The scenery looked like a blur of multiple colors as he dashed on. Somehow, seven years ago, when he first got blown backwards by the mysterious alien craft, he'd found himself the recipient of strange powers. He could run at supersonic speeds; his strength would be the envy of Heracles, and his skin could make titanium look brittle. There were some days where he wondered if his name was Kal-El, and he would come across a strange green rock that would hurt him tremendously, but so far neither of these things seemed to be true.

He ran on until he got to the outskirts of the busiest part of the city, where the school was. He checked his watch. "Eighteen minutes." He whispered to himself. "I'm getting faster; yesterday it took twenty-two." He hadn't taken but a few steps when he saw a car on fire. _Oh shit, that could be bad,_ he knew. He looked quickly to an alley between buildings, and threw his backpack. He then dashed over to the car at such a speed that no one could see him move, and tore the door off the car. Not having time to run away, as he could tell the fire had burned to the tank, he circled around and covered her body with his. Sure enough, the car exploded in a massive burst of flame, thrusting several feet into the air before landing in a fiery heap. She was unharmed, but frightened, and he then took his opportunity to leave. Quickly appearing before a person trying to run off with his pack, he moved on towards the school, this time, at a normal, human speed.

_Dammit, burned my favorite shirt. Oh well, at least the school jacket wasn't damaged. _He took his school jacket, with the prestigious emblem emblazoned on the front, and donned it. No more (super)heroic acts today until school was out, he vowed. He came across the entrance to the school building when he saw two out of shape cops chasing down a petty thief. He struck his face with his palm in exasperation; he said he wouldn't, but what was a teenager to do?

* * *

A/N: I always wanted to do a superhero Hikaru no Go story, but couldn't come up with a good plot until now. I promise, in later chapters, I will explain how Hikaru's and Akira's powers work; the lack of an explanation was always what bugged me about Superman.


	2. Chapter 2

Aphrodisiac for the Wicked  
by Moonraker One

CHAPTER TWO

Hikaru entered the men's restroom and washed his face and arms off. The damage to his clothes was thankfully on the back of his shirt, and since his jacket had been safely in his backpack, it now covered the visible part. The soot on his body mainly stuck to his skin, and he found it easy enough to come off. One thing he had noticed, was that when the car exploded, he barely felt the heat. He'd been on fire before when a generator he was working on sprayed him with gasoline, but even then there were slight burn marks and very mild pain. Now, he checked his skin thoroughly; his skin hadn't taken a hit and he felt no after-burn. It must mean, he figured, that his already impressive powers were growing in intensity. He knew very well he had to be careful. As powerful as he was, he knew that if people knew too much about him, they'd come with their military and their scientists, and they'd want to study him as if he were enemy technology. His parents warned him, and he took their words to heart. He thought of the car rescue, and trusted that no one had seen him move.

Leaving the restroom, he almost bumped into someone. He said "excuse me," but then took a double take as he saw who it was.

"Hikaru!" Akira stated, surprised. "I haven't seen you in ages!"

Hikaru chuckled a bit. "Well, my parents have me do a lot of chores. Say, how's your dad and your business doing? Sign any new deals?"

Akira shook his head. "Nah. It seems as though the mighty Koyo Toya likes to keep to himself more than a lot of CEOs. What class you have now?"

Hikaru scratched his head. "I got biology. You?"

"Calculus."

Hikaru winced. "God, that sucks."

Akira rolled his eyes. "I know. But in the business world, rates of change are essential. It just seems like a way to try and predict the impossible, in my opinion. Well, I'll see you when class is over."

"See you later."

Akira did his business then washed his hands. He splashed water in his face and stared at the mirror. _You're certainly something, Akira,_ he thought. _Your dad wants you to inherit his skills, both business and Go related._ He scoffed at such a precept. His father had the rank of a high-level professional Go player, as well as being the president of a gaming company. The shoes the young boy seemed pushed to fill overwhelmed him. Perhaps if he had remained a girl, he imagined, it would have been different. Perhaps the expectations others had of him would be less, and thus, if he accomplished something it'd be a more impressive feat. Currently, the most he could do is equal his father's accomplishments.

Hikaru went into his morning biology class (which he hated), and sat down. On the way to his seat, several of the guys gave him trouble the way they always do. He remained careful; the slightest accidental use of his abilities and the attention drawn to him would be disastrous. He shook off their ignorant words as he walked on. If there was one thing that the farm boy didn't like, it was city teenagers who thought they were so well off simply because they were able to live in the city. He sat down and placed his backpack on the ground by his seat.

The teacher's droning on about organelles inside of an animal cell wasn't the most interesting idea in the universe; but he tried his best to remain focused. He tried to imagine if his cells were any different. It dawned on him that some of his cells would have to be different in some way in order for him to be able to utilize his powers. The boy thought of some go games he'd played with some friends of his. The plant that entered his town years ago built game boards, so naturally, the game became popular in the farming community. As his thought drifted away from one board, and to another, he wondered how well he stacked up in matches against the once girl, Akira. He suddenly had a thought of, how weird must it have been for Akira to change gender. Hikaru always thought his powers would require him to be more careful than he wanted to be, but at least he was still a boy.

Akira, having finished his calculus class about an hour after Hikaru and he went in separate directions, stepped outside to go to a different class. He walked past the same area of flowers he'd always gone by. This time he noticed something, perhaps by mere accident. A small patch of crab grass was choking the life out of the flowers near it. He reached down and put his open hands over the flowers. Invisible, life-giving energy flowed from his hand and the flowers bloomed once again. He stood up to leave, then thought of something. He doubted it would work, but invariably he decided it worth trying. Moving his hand near the grass, he thought quietly. At first, nothing happened, and he began to doubt its possibility. However, after a few moments of trying, energy flowed out of the crab grass, drawing it shades of brown as it whithered. Startled, he retracted his hand; did his life-manipulating powers harm as well as heal? This revelation caused him concern, as he stood up and walked on. What if he hurt someone accidentally? How much control did he truly have? It perplexed and worried him, but not tremendously.

The biology class had ended, and for Hikaru, it couldn't have been a better turn of events. He went onward towards the gym, where he found it possible to blend in, so as to improve his standing in the group. He found the shortest way to the gym was to cut through the rear way leading from the parking lot rather than go the long way around, and he would then pass by the metal shop and other shop classes. On his way to the gym, he saw the shop teacher putting papers into his case while one of the machines powered down, several feet behind him. Hikaru saw the blade shoot a piece of shrapnel at a high rate of speed; the trajectory included the teacher. Immediately, and without thinking, he dashed with supersonic speed and used his body as a shield against the shrapnel. The jagged piece of iron crashed into Hikaru's upper chest, doing a slight tear to his shirt but crumpling like paper against his skin. Seeing instantly that the blade had pieces of it broken, and would fling them, he placed the piece of iron in his hand, straightened it out, and flicked it downward, where it sliced through the power cord of the machine and buried itself in the wall. The machine stopped and the farm boy took a few more shots of metal to his chest in defense of the teacher. Right before the man would've looked, he dashed out of the room. The whole ordeal took less than one and a quarter seconds.

_This day won't give me a break_, Hikaru thought. _I've already used my powers not once, but in three separate rescue-related events!_ He felt burdened by a lot, even though the uses were trivial. He would go on to gym class and have a quasi-normal hour. His next few classes would be boring, which was a fine alternative to hero business.

"Tell me something, Hikaru," Akira said, strolling up to his friend. "How good do you think you are at Go?"

Hikaru looked at him. "I play whenever I get the chance; it's just that I have a lot of work to do on the farm."

Akira sighed. "You are truly a unique individual. I don't think I've ever seen someone as content with a farm life as you are."

Hikaru almost laughed. "I don't have a problem doing work; I just don't enjoy it that much. I'm not really satisfied with agriculture. I just don't have that many options available. You've got the whole world in front of you."

"Are you serious?" the raven-haired boy chuckled. "It might look like I've got a lot I could do, but in actuality, you have more freedom than I do."

Hikaru raised an eyebrow. "How's that, again?"

"Well, for one, Hikaru, no matter what I want, I'm going to end up inheriting my father's company, and becoming a professional Go player. There's nothing else he would allow me to become."

"Then maybe I'll have to be a professional go player to balance you out, Akira!"

Akira gave him a challenging look. "You want to test your mettle right now?"

Hikaru scratched the back of his head. "I'd love to, but I have a class!"

"That's right," Akira remembered. "You have a last hour class so that you can get out of here in three years instead of four." He handed his friend a piece of paper. "Come to this Go salon after school."

"But, Akira, I don't have any money other than lunch money..."

Akira winked. "TRUST me."

Hikaru glanced at the paper. "Go salon...I'm sure he's done a lot more practicing than I have. I mean, I can beat both of my parents...but still," he whispered. He went on to his last class, which he found a slight bit of interest in. He figured he'd probably wind up farming, so there wasn't much good for school.

Walking to the salon from school, he thought of how much his life had changed since Akira and he had come in contact with the mysterious alien craft. He no longer had to worry about dying in a farming accident; he had yet to find something capable of piercing his skin. Never did he tire out; he could do the work of five farm hands in the same time, yet he always had the energy to do more. The job usually left farmers at the end of the day with burning muscles that had strained quite a bit; not Hikaru. He could bench press a tractor all day without fatiguing. Some beings would kill for such powers. They certainly came in handy, he felt, but they were unnecessary. He did not wish to become a hero, and felt as though the burden was thrust upon him. If it was what he was meant to do, he'd do it, but he should've had a choice. Then, he thought of Akira again. The girl had become a boy; he thanked God that he didn't have to undergo that change.

The salon's interior struck Hikaru as moderately intricate. The woman at the front desk regarded him with a simple glance. "Don't worry about the entrance fee, Akira paid your visit," she replied. She thought about the prospect. "Hey, are you seriously a challenge for him?"

Hikaru let loose a nervous laugh. "Well, I hope so, otherwise he won't be very interested, will he?"

"Not really," she merely replied, laughing slightly.

"Ah, there you are, Hikaru! Sit down here." He beckoned to his friend and Go rival.

"I hope you won't completely obliterate me, Akira. You probably play your dad every day. Congratulations on him winning the Meijin, by the way."

"Thank you," Akira replied, finishing the formalities. "I figure since you haven't played me in forever, I'll just let you be black. Onegaishimasu."

"Onegaishimasu."

Hikaru gripped a black stone between his index and middle finger and placed it on the board. Akira replied. It was only a few moves in that they both began to see their opponent's strategy. _He's going all out_, they both thought. The midgame struggle would go on for almost an hour. Playing ever so slightly faster than normal enabled Hikaru to try to outpace Akira's thinking. It wouldn't work completely, and the fight remained dead even into the endgame by the hour and a half mark.

They moved the stones around and counted up the points at the end of the game. Akira grinned. "looks like I win by one moku with komi."

Hikaru took a sip of his soda. "Damn, you're strong a player."

"Me? I didn't expect the farm boy to push me to endgame and only let me win by one moku!"

"I gotta get going, Akira, my parents will be worried, and I've got chores to do."

Akira smiled. "I took care of that." He lifted his cell phone into view. "You've got one more match, they said they'll hold out. After all, aren't you, able to do the work of a bunch of people?"

Hikaru didn't understand how Akira got his parents to agree to leaving him out after school hours, but if it worked, it worked. They began playing again. This game found itself even more intense than the previous one. They decided to play fast, and so this whole game took less than twenty-four minutes. Nevertheless, it didn't lose any of its furious attitude. Akira won once again, by two moku, but he was amazed at his rival's performance.

The two walked down the street talking. There was a spot near the outskirts of the city that always had an opportunity for Hikaru to escape when the sun went down. "I'm amazed at your skill, Hikaru; you, I always pegged for the hard worker who doesn't have time for anything fun."

Hikaru snickered. "I guess you aren't the best judge of a person."

Just then they heard a gunshot. Hikaru could pinpoint it's location instantly. He peered around the corner of a building, and saw a man on the ground in pain, and three guys around him, each with guns. Hikaru looked at Akira, and gave him the look of, "I'm going for it." He then took off at superhuman speed and shoved the man standing at the injured man's feet, into the wall of the building. He then grabbed the two guys flanking the injured man, and threw them head first into each other, knocking them both unconscious. He looked at the man on the ground, bleeding from a gunshot. "Akira! He's been shot! We have to get him to a hospital!"

"No need," Akira said, walking up. He knelt by the man. He initially felt a little nervous, because he didn't want to kill him like he did the crab grass. He hovered his right palm over the wound, and the invisible energy radiating from Akira's hand stimulated tissue regrowth. The metal slug rose like a geyser spitting out a rock, as the tissue sealed up. The man seemed to stop complaining of pain as Akira helped him. "There we go," he uttered.

Hikaru took the man's hand, and lifted him to a standing position. The man was taller than the two of them, with effeminate facial features and long, dark hair. "Thank you so much, uh, who are you?"

"Akira Toya."

"Hikaru Shindo, hey, who were those guys attacking you?"

He shook his head to clear it. "I'm Sai Fujiwara, and they were after something I had." He produced a vial with a reddish-orange mist floating around in it; it was the same mist that came from the alien craft that gave them their dramatic changes.


	3. Chapter 3

Aphrodisiac for the Wicked  
by Moonraker One

CHAPTER THREE

Both teenagers simply stared at the vial; they could scarcely believe they were staring at the same substance that came out of the spacecraft. The implications of the object in front of them gave them a paranoid feeling. Neither Akira nor Hikaru were much for being suspicious of random people this quickly, but they believed there was only a short list of things that the vial could mean. Obvious thoughts surfaced, and each of them knew at least a brief version of what the other thought. "I think I know what you're wondering about me," the tall man explained, "and no, I don't work for the government."

"Let me guess," Akira chimed in. If the man didn't work for the government, that left one other possibility. "You work for some corporation, that's dead-set on unlocking the mysteries of that and duplicating it."

Sai shook his head. "Nope. In fact, I highly doubt there's a company that managed to get anything, because the craft that landed in that field was destroyed, and it was the only one in a few decades."

Hikaru squinted in suspicion. "You...know about the field?" This revelation, he didn't find to be very pleasing.

"Of course I know about the field...I'm part of a group of scientists that are independently researching the alien craft and the red mist that comes out of it."

The farm boy checked his watch. "Oh crap, I've got to get home."

Upon hearing that, Sai perked up. "Um, if it isn't too much trouble, I'd love to go with you. You've each been 'changed' by the mist, there's things I need to tell you."

"Akira, I live about three hundred kilometers away from here, do you have any way of getting him to my house in less than an hour?"

"We'll take my helicopter," Akira answered. He turned to Sai. "Is that okay, Fujiwara-san?" A nod was his answer.

"I'll see you guys at my place. Bye." And with that, he took off. One with really good eyesight might see his blur as he sprinted. He arrived at his destination, where several chores awaited him. He first loaded the hay into the proper place in the barn. Then he ate and explained to his parents what he experienced.

"It's good to see you've got your abilities under control," Hikaru's mother explained. "You have to be careful; this guy you're bringing sounds ok, but there are people who would exploit you."

"Mom, I know," he shot back, scooping food into his mouth. "But I can't just let people get hurt if I can do something."

"Hikaru," his father answered, "sometimes you have to choose yourself over others. I'm not saying become arrogant and selfish, but if you always put others above yourself you'll only get into trouble. After all, you're not Superman." Hikaru glared at him. "Well...uh...you know what I mean."

"My powers must be getting stronger. This morning, when I saved the woman from her car exploding, there were no burn marks whatsoever, and I barely felt the heat. On top of that, I arrived at the city in eighteen minutes instead of twenty-two. Then, a faulty machine in the shop fired a piece of shrapnel and I barely felt a tap."

"Hikaru, that's all the more reason to be careful. I don't want you having to become a science experiment."

Just then, they heard the sound of a helicopter landing outside. "That's them," Hikaru said, finishing his plate. "I'm gonna talk to him."

Hikaru's father threw him a sack of nails. "Put up some fenceposts while you're at it."

Dashing outside, he met his friend, and the scientist from the city. "Hikaru! It's nice to see you again," Sai cheered. "Anyway, I wanted to see your powers in action, then I'll explain them."

Hikaru walked over and picked up a long piece of wood for the fence. "You've already seen my speed," he explained, "I've also got strength and durability." He lifted the post with his left arm, and furiously shoved it into the ground. He then placed his hand on top of it and pushed it down effortlessly to the depth of the others. Then he lifted the intermediary board and held it against the fenceposts, placed a nail over it, and pushed the nail in to attach the boards. He did this until he completed the fence.

"Okay, I know which one you got."

Akira looked at Sai weird. "Which _one_? You mean there's more than one?"

"There are six we know of," he replied. "you got the most powerful one, Hikaru. Your body uses energy of virtually any type, and your mind transmutes that into psionic abilities. Your speed works by your mind altering your flow of time around you. Your strength is tactile telekinesis."

Hikaru interrupted him. "Tac-what?"

"It means, Hikaru, that when you need strength, your mind augments your physical strength according to your load. And your durability, is an invisible psionic barrier in your skin."

Akira looked at him. "So, you've seen my abilities already, what is the deal?"

"I don't know why the mist changed your gender. But your power is the ability to alter the flow of life energy; you can take it, and kill the subject, or give it, and heal the subject." He noticed the two of them seemed more than slightly weirded out by the prospect of all of this. "I know what you guys are thinking."

"Where did these alien crafts come from?" Hikaru interrupted.

Sai was waiting for that question. "We have studied a craft that we have in our laboratory. It didn't explode like most of the others do; upon later inspection, we found some incredibly advanced self-destruct mechanism that failed to go off. It was designed, not to completely vaporize the craft, but to simply destroy all the useful equipment.

"We have data files that were put into the craft. One of them gave a very simple look into a very advanced species. They have psionic abilities, not unlike the ones you two have, and they sent these pods to Earth presumably to enhance a few members of the species and see what happens." He shrugged his shoulders. "I don't understand the motivations any more than you do. But what I do know is that the mist in these ships is designed to induce activation of specific parts of the brain we no longer use."

Hikaru scratched his head. "All of this is very new to me...why don't we go inside?" He turned his attention to Akira. "We can play some Go."

Akira grinned. "Always up for a challenge, huh? Sure. Why not."

After doing some more chores, Hikaru met the other two up in his room. Akira got out the goban and they decided Hikaru would be white. Sai merely watched the two play and was quite impressed by their skill. Unbeknownst to them, he had played quite a bit of go and had a 9 dan rank. He just didn't play professional matches much anymore. To him, the kids had tremendous skill for their age. A forty-five minute game resulted in a victory of two moku for Hikaru. "Wow, I actually beat you this time, Akira! That's amazing!"

"That reminds me, Hikaru, what are you doing about the pro exams? Are you planning on becoming an insei?"

Hikaru rolled his eyes. "I hope so. I'll probably have to just hope I get strong enough to take the exam without becoming an insei."

Akira cringed. "Ouch. Being so busy you can't take extra time to become an insei?"

"No, most likely they won't take kindly to the thought of focusing more on something other than school."

"You can come to my lab," Sai spoke up. "I can teach you Go under the guise of showing you stuff about your powers! I am a professional, after all."

"That's a great idea!" Hikaru responded.

Akira checked his watch. "Oh gosh, we have to get going. Look at the time."

Sai stood up, shook both their hands, and headed outside. "I'll meet you at the chopper, Akira."

On his way out, Sai sent a text message via his phone; "I've made contact. Get the equipment ready; I want to see the stuff under the scope."


	4. Chapter 4

Aphrodisiac for the Wicked  
by Moonraker One

CHAPTER FOUR

Hikaru stepped into the building. The large structure of glass and steel, inside the city of Tokyo, seemed to hide the fact that scientific analyses of unimaginable complexity and importance happened daily. To those outside, it looked indistinguishable from nearly all the standard office buildings, and in their minds—which more often than not never even considered its existence—it probably had the same purpose as all the rest. However, there wasn't ordinary office procedures being done—at least not on every other floor—there was breakthroughs in discovery thanks to dedicated scientific minds such as Sai Fujiwara, the man who enabled the process.

The young farm boy walked over to the large door on the basement level marked "Restricted Area – Keep Out." Pressing the button he found a camera opening from a hole in the wall; it examined him, then the large metal door revealed a brightly-lit room of metal and technology. Men working at computer terminals stopped their actions only momentarily to give him their undivided attention. After all, it wasn't every day that they ran into a being that exhibited the very abilities they spent many hours exhaustively researching. Pressing several of them for assistance, he found himself pointed in the right direction.

"Hey, Hikaru!" Sai's cheery voice exuded. "Come over here to my office and we can discuss things." In between sips of his hot mocha latte he spoke. His striped business suit and tie and khaki pants sat beneath a white lab coat. Hikaru felt very out of place in his hand-me-down shirt and shorts. "Akira came in earlier to talk business." As the two of them entered the office of the tall, effeminate scientist, he took off his coat and Hikaru, his pack.

The office contained everything Hikaru expected and a few things he never had laid his eyes upon. Predictably, he came across a computer terminal, with audio-visual equipment. He also saw the microscope connected to the PC. A large metal cube connected via wires to the outside terminals, as well as a small tube with a glowing green orb floating around in a gelatinous substance, were examples of things that seemed alien. Hikaru had to remind himself once again, that it was he that was out of place with his superhuman abilities.

"Sit down, and we'll get started on your game," Sai requested. A swiveling chair saw Hikaru rest in it at the edge of the desk. The scientist produced a very fine (and very expensive) looking goban which he sat in between himself and the boy. He allowed Hikaru to take a nine stone handicap plus reverse komi. The boy's abilities struck him as impressive for his age, but surely the boy had much to learn.

For nearly an hour the stones clashed. The inevitable victory by Sai came with much information behind it. The scientist noticed several of the fundamental problems that Hikaru would need to work on to improve his game, while at the same time taking in the fact that his expectations were surpassed. He explained to the boy all of his findings, and the two played another game. This time, it didn't take as long and the gap of defeat shrunk. He found playing against the teenager to be stimulating, and drove him to nostalgia; at one point, he gave up his life as a professional Go player so that he could devote his studies in college to the field of science for humanity. Currently, he made sure to remind himself of his work. "Hikaru, if you could come over here for a bit, I'd appreciate it," he invited. "You can help us greatly enhance our study of the alien craft." Hikaru followed the long-haired Sai to the metal object in the middle of the large room.

"This is...pretty intense," Hikaru exclaimed, approaching a small stairs leading down to the center of the floor. The shiny metal craft turned a bit, and opened a small hole on its side. A thin beam of light shone at the boy, and Hikaru lost balance. Plummeting down about four feet, he instinctively closed his eyes and threw his arms up to shield his face (despite knowing the fall couldn't hurt him), and he noticed he hadn't hit yet. "What..." he mouthed. It came to him that he saw his physical location in his mind. A mental picture of him hovering above the floor, was what he saw. Sure enough, opening his eyes revealed this. Picturing himself tilting midair to a standing position worked, as his body moved according to his thoughts.

"Wow, this is certainly new!" Hikaru exclaimed. His thoughts were echoed by several of the scientists. Sai had informed them of what he'd seen, but this was a new ability indeed.

"We need to test this," Sai uttered. If there was one thing he knew, it was that a breakthrough of this magnitude had to be studied. Meanwhile, on the other end of the city, several figures sat at a table inside a corporate office discussing the affairs of the day. Outside the office, Akira sat, waiting for his father to finish his daily meeting. He grew tired of the men he considered to be cretins, who worked for the rival company and were meeting with them for numerous occasions. If it were up to him, he'd simply draw the company out of relations with them; it wasn't like they were providing any assistance. He had the feeling that someone in the company was a spy. His father probably had the same lurking suspicion, but didn't act upon it in a visible manner.

"It's good to see you taking such an interest in your father's work ethic, Mr. Toya," a high-ranking executive said, sitting down next to Akira. The son hated the man beside him; years prior he challenged the position of CEO that went to Akira's father. Rather than be a useful asset to the company, this man decided to be a hawk in wait. The moment Koyo Toya would slip up, he would come down swooping, hunting for his opportunity.

Akira put on a fake smile and replied, "I always believe that my father knows exactly what my grandfather had in mind when he started this company." He reached into the pocket that his coworker couldn't see, and, from memory of the key location, text messaged, "Give me a reason to leave here." Within two minutes he received a phone call. "Yeah? Ok. I'm coming." He turned to his coworker. "I have to go, a friend of mine is going to the hospital." All the way out the door he thought, _Thank you Sai, I needed to get out a bit_. He went out the door and started walking. Upon leaving the building, approximately four minutes passed before he received another phone call.

"So, what did you need a reason to leave for?" Sai asked.

Akira rolled his eyes. "Business politics; it's a field that pisses me off."

The scientist gritted his teeth. "Ah, I understand. It's a downside of being the son of a corporate CEO."He looked to his left. "You need to see what's going on over here!"

The son perked up. "What, did Hikaru beat you?"

Sai laughed. "Not a chance. Something DID happen with him, though; he gained a new ability. He can move his body with telekinesis."

"You're telling me Hikaru can _fly_?" That fact struck him as weird. "How did this happen?"

The scientist looked over at the wannabe go player struggling to master the art of flight. "Well, it happened when he came into contact with the craft. I guess it served as an augment, sort of like what happened to you."

Akira shot lightning from his fingertips and incinerated a fly. "Yup, now I can do more than just manipulate living energy; I can just about alter any type." He cleared his throat. "I'll be there shortly."

"See you in a bit," Sai ended the conversation with. "Hey, Hikaru, do you think you've gotten the hang of your flying?"

Hikaru grinned as he landed on the roof of the building. "I'm pretty confident that I've got it down cold."

"Good, now let's see if we can measure how fast you can possibly go. From here to the southernmost town in Japan is about a thousand kilometers. Try to get there and back as fast as you can." He handed the boy a GPS device. "This'll tell you how to get back in case you forget."

"Sure thing," Hikaru cheerfully yelled. Placing the device in his pocket, he hovered slightly off the building, aimed himself in the direction of southernmost Japan, and took off like a bullet. Sai had to shield himself of the gust of wind caused by the take off. It wasn't but a few feet in front of where he started that he broke the sound barrier.

"That kid has good acceleration," Sai noted.

The boy felt a number of different emotions all at once. He'd never flown before, much less of his own power. Now he saw the ground rush below him so fast that it looked like a solid carpet of different colors. Air blew over and under him, threatening to rip his clothes from his body, but fortunately they held. As he went through different areas of weather, he flew above rain clouds forming in some areas, so as to keep dry. He couldn't make out the people because they all were a blur.

He found a relatively safe place to land and did so. Looking around quickly he saw the various sights to see and forced himself to slow down his breathing. Taking a deeper scan around, he took in the sights and sounds. This was an area he probably never would have visited due to his financial limitations. He strolled around for a few minutes, wanting to take a picture except for his lack of a camera. Very quickly did he realize his situation, and he pointed himself towards his original location and took off. He got about the same amount of time going back. He wanted to fly more often, before the feeling of "new" wore off.

Sai had been clapping when Hikaru landed. Akira stood next to him, shielding his eyes from the bright sunlight. "Wow! That was very impressive, Hikaru!" the scientist exclaimed. He looked at the GPS device. "About forty-three hundred kilometers in thirteen minutes! That's about...a little over eighteen thousand kilometers per hour!" Akira whistled in amazement. "I'd say, you've got the most amazing talents!"

"He's not the only one," Akira interjected. He lifted his hand to right in front of his friend, and lightning danced off his fingertips. As it danced, it changed into flame, then into light, then disappeared back into his flesh. "I've gained the ability to fully manipulate all kinds of energy."

As the two saluted each other on their abilities, Sai held up two vials of the red mass of nanites. He noticed that as they got closer to the two teenagers, they started moving about in different patterns. Notably, the patterns of the energy flowing through their bodies. _This might be the key to everything,_ Sai thought. _I have to study this._ He would make a mental note to analyze them later. "You guys have amazing gifts," he told them. "Make sure you use them properly, because the world doesn't always look up to those with power, or always treat them with respect."

"What about you," Hikaru asked. "What do you plan to do with whatever you find? There are people that'll kill to get a hold of the abilities we've got."

Sai reached into his pocket and pulled out a vial of blue nanites. "These are an anti to your nanites. They don't remove your abilities, they just cause your body to exhaust all of your superhuman energy."

"Because abilities like ours require energy for the extra-mental abilities to work," Akira took notice. He grinned. "Always got a plan; nice. But what if you're attacked by conventional weapons?"

"We've got alien defense technology at our disposal; don't worry." Sai thought of something. "Hey, Akira, if you can manipulate energy of any kind, perhaps YOU could fly as well by manipulating your kinetic energy?"

"Way ahead of you," he admitted, as he hovered above the roof.

"Hey, Sai? Can I borrow that GPS device for a bit?"

Akira looked at him. "Did you have an itch to go somewhere?"

Hikaru grinned. "Akira, have you ever been to China?"

Akira had a competitive look in his eye. "Think you're fast, huh? You're on, farm boy."

"Think you're badass, business suit?"

The two took off.

Sai scratched his head. "Almost too easy." He looked at the vials. "Almost."


	5. Chapter 5

Aphrodisiac for the Wicked  
by Moonraker One

CHAPTER FIVE

Sai Fujiwara and his crew toiled about in the relatively unknown laboratory. The nanites that had been extracted from the alien craft flowed in a specific pattern. Sai made it his duty to make the pattern recorded on the computer. The technology of the Yomorak species had so many potential uses in society. Nanites that could alter an organism on a complete scale, even to change the physiology itself, could cure almost every disease known to man, and create a world of damage free people. Sai, however, wasn't a man who possessed Utopian ideals. He knew better than to force such a thing on the world. First of all, he knew it would never be accepted; he knew it would only be misused. No, he knew. Despite the apparent selfishness in such an action, he swore he would make the technology known only to a select few that happen to be involved.

Yet the powers the two enhanced humans he'd already met came with them an aura of mystique that he found irresistible. Hikaru could fly at thousands of kilometers per hour, withstand high velocity projecties and intense explosions, and lift masses in excess of 100 tons. Akira could alter virtually any type of energy in any way imaginable, from as small as draining the living energy out of a plant and killing it, to as complex as lifting a building by altering its kinetic energy. These were abilities that he wanted. Was he a bit unusual? Perhaps. But he had the ability to surpass these two, by deducing the nature of the technology itself. He'd already determined the electrical nature of the technology.

"Sir!" one of the scientists shouted. "We've discovered something!"

Sai rushed over to the console. "The pod emits a specific magnetic code, which we've been able to decode and reproduce. Apparently, it is how the ship tells the nanites to replicate, and also, it determines which pattern of diffusion they do."

It hit Sai all at once. "You mean we can make more of it now? And also alter the pattern to create more abilities?"

"Yes sir, and we've also determined that there are six types of enhancements in all. The bad news is, we only know two of them; the two that Hikaru and Akira have."

"Don't worry. We'll go through the data files recovered from the craft," Sai informed, "and there we'll find our answer. Now that we've got their language mostly decoded we can get more information."

One scientist put his hand on Sai's shoulder. "Doctor Fujiwara, do you think what we're doing will arouse suspicion?"

Sai looked at him. "We have to take that risk. We're on the verge of the greatest discovery in the history of mankind!" He looked over at the large rack of tubes. Each tube stood seven centimeters tall and had a diameter of two and a quarter centimeters. Each one had the familiar red mist in them. Alien technology that had the power to reshape the world; the power of a god contained within the tubes. Such power could enable a being to easily conquer anything in his or her path. The only thing that could weaken them, were two vials of blue nanites designed to temporarily disable the powers of a nano-enhanced being by removing their storage of energy and forcing them to store all over again. Both vials were in his pocket. "Let's make more of the nanites, just as a security feature." The crew toiled away at the consoles, eagerly pressing forward with their "great discovery."

A knock on the door sounded. One of the scientists pressed the intercom button. "Who's there?" he implored. He looked at Sai while he waited for the answer.

"It's Hikaru! C'mon, let me in!" His cheery outburst rang out.

"Let him in," Sai ordered. The scientist did as instructed. "Hikaru! How are things going? Any change in your abilities?" He asked questions that seemed standard, but if a different answer than usual came, it would require studying.

"No, the same as always. I'm fine, my abilities haven't changed at all."

Sai took mental note. "That's good to hear. So, what have you been up to lately?" He partially wanted to know for pure interest, and partially because he made it his business to know about Hikaru.

Hikaru scratched his head. "Aw, nothing much really. High school has been a bit unusual, what with the things that happen in the city. I don't really like having to juggle saving people from accidents then quickly running away to school, but hey, it's all I can do." He checked his watch. "Oh, I can't stay but a little bit longer. I've got a date with my friend Akari Fujisaki."

Sai grinned, folding his arms into a more comfortable position. "You don't exactly look like you're dressed up for a night on the town." He wondered of the implications of intimacy. What would happen if Hikaru, enhanced by the alien nanotechnology, had sex with the girl? Even if he used protection, and avoided impregnating her, would nanites from him still be transferred to her? And if so, what would the result be? Or, he also thought, maybe it didn't have to go that far. Maybe something as simple as a wet kiss would do so. _How to study this without alerting them of my intentions_, he wondered.

"I guess not," he chuckled. "But I just wanted to stop by and ask when would be a good time for us to do some more practice games of Go. I wanna try out for the pro test, some time this year."

"Oh, uh, I'm pretty sure I'll be free tomorrow at four o'clock. That'll give you the opportunity to go right from school to here!"

Hikaru perked up. "Sounds great, Sai! I really hope to get more into our games!" Just then, his cell phone rang. "Hello? Oh, Akari! Yeah, uh, I'll be there soon! Where'd I go? I just went in to visit a friend. No, I don't think you can come in..."

Sai interrupted him. "Oh, don't worry. She'll be fine."

The would-be go professional raised his eyebrows in confusion. "Well, uh, sure! It seems you can just walk in. I'll give you the door number. It's the fourth one from the shiny sign. The shiny sign that says 'deluxe edition prints.' Got it?" He then hung up.

A few moments later, a voice came over the speaker. "Um, hello? Hikaru? Are you in there?" The boy in question recognized Akari's voice instantly. The scientist at the main computer panel pressed a button and the door opened. She came in and found herself awestruck by the sheer amount of technology available. Certainly she'd seen computers and the like before, but the type of equipment in this place, now that was completely foreign. "Wow, you guys sure know how to pile on the machinery!"

Sai put on a smile. "You know you have to have the best when you're dealing with scientific discoveries on a regular basis."

She shook her head in amazement. "You got that right." She snapped out of it and looked at her date. "So, Hikaru! Where are we going out at?" She flipped her hair back with one hand, waiting for his answer. She contemplated all the things they'd done in the past. She always knew him to be slightly short tempered, and he would often become very childish about certain things—like the male need for excitement in activity—and would become something of a risk taker. She knew he had a secret he hid from her, but she didn't have the slightest clue as to what it was. Perhaps, she figured, it had something to do with how he got to school in the morning despite living nearly 300 kilometers away from the city.

"I was thinking of a restaurant nearby," he replied. "I may not be rich, but I've certainly got enough for you today."

She folded her arms. "I'd hope so," she admonished, her tone biting. "Last time you nearly got stuck washing dishes. You were damn lucky the guy was a Go player and you could beat him."

He scratched his head. "Oh, was that it?" he laughed, embarrassed. "Yeah, you're right, that IS lucky." He looked at Sai. "Keep me posted if you discover anything new!" With that, he and the dark-haired girl from the city headed to the restaurant.

"I will!" Sai replied, as the two teens left the building. When they were gone, he looked to his main assistant. "How goes the replication?"

The scientist looked at the row of tubes with the familiar orangish-red flowing like water around inside it. "Just fine, sir! We've got six tubes and it looks like the pod is waiting for us to use a few of them up before it will make more."

"Good. Once we have enough, we can decompile their programming, and hopefully figure out how the nanites do what they do. Then, gentlemen, the possibilities are endless!" He got up, and went into his office. "I'm going to be doing some work. Please give me privacy." The door locked behind them. Once inside, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a tube of the nanites. He placed it into a device that connected via cable to the computer. Then the programming code of the nanoscopic robots displayed on his screen. _They don't have to know I'm further ahead than they are in deciphering the code_, he thought. Lying to those who he'd worked with for over a decade seemed manipulative, he realized, but great minds always forge ahead.

At the restaurant, Hikaru and Akari sat down at a table. They arranged their setting according to their tastes, and ordered off the menu. "I'll have the usual," the boy uttered. He turned his cell phone on vibrate, and looked across the table at his date.

Akari set her menu down. "I'll have the same," she followed. She waited until the waiter had left. "Hikaru, are you ever going to tell me your secret? I mean, I care about you, why can't you just tell me?"

He coughed. "Akari, I'd love to tell you, but I really don't think I should. I don't want you to suffer because of me."

"Suffer?" she shot back, thrown for a loop by his words. "You make it sound like you killed someone? That isn't it, is it?"

"No!" Hikaru sharply replied. "I just don't...hey! I have an idea. If you go home tonight, and don't try to duck your father, I'll tell you tomorrow at school." He had two reasons for this, and the first one was that, despite her father being an abusive alcoholic, wandering the streets at night to avoid him didn't seem any safer. The second one was slightly different.

"Go straight home? Shouldn't I wait for my dad to fall asleep? Oh well. I guess you're right; it'd be so easy to get killed. I mean, you live in the country; I doubt you guys have any serious crime." Just then, nature called. "Oh, I'll be back soon." She got up. "You know what I mean." As she walked away, he reached in his pocket. From it, he pulled a vial. It contained a very familiar substance. _You might hate me for doing this to you_, he thought, _but I can't have you getting hurt by either your dad or anyone else_. He popped it open. It might have been pure luck that her tea was already orangish-red, because it would hide the evidence of what he was about to do. Quickly glancing around to check for wandering eyes, he poured half of the liquid-like mass of nanites into her drink, then quickly replaced the vial's cap and put it in his pocket. Using his speed it took less than a fraction of a second.

"I'm back." She sat down, and, rather thirsty, took a drink of her tea. The bowls of soup came, and they both dug in. "So you promise you'll tell me tomorrow?"

"I promise," he replied. He drank, and, perhaps out of mimicry, Akari took a gulp of her tea as well. She then seemed to suddenly twitch her head a bit. "Is...is something wrong?" he uttered.

"No, I just...feel a bit...tingly. Is something in the tea?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Well, maybe it's some kind of new flavor you haven't tried?"

The feeling died down a moment later, so she assumed him correct. "Yeah. Ok, that makes sense." She finished it in the next gulp.


	6. Chapter 6

Aphrodisiac for the Wicked  
by Moonraker One

CHAPTER SIX

Akari walked home from the date. _Stupid Hikaru_, she thought. She fastened her coat as she trod down the street. She wanted to wait until she knew that her father would be asleep; but, shaking her head, she realized that Hikaru exactly knew what would be best for her. As much as she would probably hate going home to her abusive father, she probably would fare worse wandering around until then. Fiddling around with her coat as she moved on, she felt a bit weird; it seemed a lot colder before the date than she currently felt.

An angry yell came from the door. "Akari!" She steeled herself for what would come next. "Bitch, why didn't you come home earlier?" She pushed the door open. It didn't necessarily matter that she had told her parents that she would be going out to have a date, once her father got drunk, the only thing that mattered was that she didn't show up right at that moment.

"Dad, you know I was on a date." She closed her eyes for the inevitable slap.

"OW!" She looked up in surprise at his loud shout. Was he fucking with her mind again? She barely felt a tap. There was no possible way he could have suffered pain from that feather strike he did. Surely enough, though, she saw him clutching a reddened hand. "Dammit, what the fuck just happened?" He looked rather perturbed, which did not suit him, especially intoxicated. She tried to analyze the situation from his perspective, which led to no results. Her mother approached and attempted to restrain her father, but it wouldn't matter, since he had already been somewhat humbled by his hand not leaving a red mark on his daughter's face.

She furrowed her eyebrows and gave an angry frown. He seriously started to get on her nerves. "I'll tell you what happened, you're drunk and you hurt your hand trying to hit me." She enjoyed the slap hurting him more than her, but the reason still eluded.

He drew back his fist for another, and the mother's frenzied attempt to block it wouldn't come in time. Emboldened by the previous result, Akari kept her eyes open. True to her eyes, his hand landed on her face, and the shockwave traveled through her tissue. However, as before, no pain resulted on her part. Immediately upon contact, he cringed as he felt his fingers stiffen from anguish. Inflammatory response set in as she looked in amazement: his hand began to turn red as blood rushed in to deal with damaged tissue. One would expect that he had hit a brick wall with his open palm rather than a young woman's face. She couldn't help but stare. What could the answer be?

"Honey, that's enough!" The mother shouted, laying down the law. "I've already put up with enough of your drinking for one evening, now you go and hit our daughter twice? You're damn lucky I don't just clock you in the face right now with my fucking frying pan!" She stood to the left side of Akari, angrily looking up at her taller husband.

The husband turned around. He looked at his half-empty whiskey bottle, and the alcohol in his system, combined with the fury caused by his wife and daughter talking back to him created a chain reaction. How dare they talk back to him? He made the money in the family! This is the payment they gave him? He would hear no more of it. Before he even knew what his body did, he found his hand wrapped around the neck of the bottle. His arm responded to some deep, primitive response as he whirled around and the bottle headed downward towards his wife's head. Equally involuntarily, Akari jumped directly in front of her mother. She would not allow her mother to take abuse for her behalf.

"I've had it!" his shout came halfway through the downward motion of his arm.

SMASH.

Akari didn't have time to close her eyes as the bottle smashed atop her head. The glass went in many different directions, and the liquid spilled on her head. Before she even bothered to check if blood had been drawn, she gave in to her anger. He'd had his fun long enough. She shoved her hand forward and slammed an open palm into his chest, not expecting anything to happen. What DID happen, however, was him being launched several feet from his position to slam into the cabinet, wrecking it and causing him to end up unconscious underneath a pile of wood and clothing. The girl looked at her hand with frightened eyes; had this been her own response? Eventually, she decided to run her hand through her alcohol-soaked hair; she found no blood. Now she began to worry.

"Mom, what's going on..." she saw her mother brandishing her rolling pin as if it were a club, "what are you doing?"

The early-forties woman had a look of sheer terror on her face. "I...I don't know who you are, but you'd better not come any closer! I'm warning you!" The lumber shook in her hand. "Where's my daughter?"

Akari looked at her, exasperated. "Mom, you can put that down now. I don't know what's going on, but I believe I just stopped dad from hurting you." Her worry gave way to annoyance at her family's insane behavior. She sidestepped her mother and turned around to be standing over the sink. She washed her hair out in the faucet, using the dish drying towel to dry with. "Are you through being nuts yet? It's bad enough that dad tried to bash me over the head with a bottle of whiskey, and that I'm apparently some kind of freak. Now you're going to hit me with a rolling pin. Well, why don't you give it a shot? You might have better luck with solid wood than his glass. After all, you certainly don't do enough to stop him from hitting me when he's drunk! Why don't you join in the fray as well!" Her mother began crying. Akari was not done yet. "Yeah, there's your answer. Break down and cry rather than do anything helpful." Her lashing words of anger poured out more so than had happened in years. "I'm glad this freaky stuff sat in! Now dad can't hurt me anymore! I've got school tomorrow. Forget the both of you." She stormed off.

As she locked her room behind her, and fell into bed, the tears rolled down her cheeks. If it hadn't been for this...whatever the hell it was that happened...she definitely would have been knocked out. She knew the drill: tomorrow, her father would apologize for the outburst (assuming he even remembered his actions), and try to make it up to her. Still, she knew the anger and frenzy had to come from somewhere. Why couldn't her father break the cycle of substance abuse? She remembered how nice he used to be, and that only made her cry more. She silently thanked her newfound durability—wherever it had come from—and fell asleep from mental exhaustion.

Hikaru entered the classroom bright and early. Flying enabled him to travel even faster than he could on foot. The eighteen minutes it took him to run the three hundred plus kilometers, he covered in fifty seconds in the air. As long as he made sure to be careful, he could sleep in later than usual. It also meant he would be in a better frame of mind since he could get more sleep, and thus, his grades would improve. He looked to his right and saw Akari walk into the classroom, acting abnormally careful, even for her. It looked as if she wanted to avoid breaking things. _So, I guess she manifested physical powers like mine instead of energy powers like Akira,_ he rationalized. Otherwise, he knew, she wouldn't be so concerned about doing collateral damage.

She sat next to him. "Hikaru," she whispered, "I know you might think I'm an idiot, but please, I have to tell you something. Something happened to me last night, and before you start panicking, no, I'm not hurt." She twitched her fingers; she desperately hoped he would understand.

He put on a fake confused look. "What sort of problem?" This warranted an annoyed look. "Ah, nevermind. I'll listen to you anyway. I know of this abandoned warehouse in the industrial side of town." He turned his attention to the chalkboard. He would fill Akira in on his plans later on. His main concerns were the class, and the later on explanation of her powers to Akari.

Sai Fujiwara stared at a computer screen with a cup of coffee by his side. For the better part of the night, he'd stayed in the lab, decompiling code. Having figured out the processing code of the nanites, he determined what parts of specific cells would be altered. The DNA model on his screen blinked at certain bonds that would be altered. Some of the other ability types that the nanites could manifest involved actual telekinesis and not tactile like Hikaru's, and one that had both types of abilities. Also, the actual type of power that a person would manifest, depended on the type of personality the individual had. He did not expect that result. Having processed the information, he put the tubes of nanites in a safe under his desk, put his computer into hibernate mode, and fell asleep on a cot in his office.

Hikaru nervously looked around for people staring, and saw none. Satisfied, Akari and he entered the warehouse. Large pieces of scrap metal lay in piles at various locations. She stood by a steel beam that had to weigh at least two tons. "Now, Hikaru, I don't want you to freak when you see this, but I have to show you." She cleared her throat. All the morning she'd muddled over how he would handle this. He had a notorious habit of not taking things as well as he should. "My dad broke a bottle over my head, and it didn't do anything to me. After that, I hit him, and he went sailing across the room." She reached down and clamped her hand under the side of the beam. "Watch." With no effort, she lifted her end of the beam. Moving her other hand under it, she lifted the entire beam over her head, spending no strain to keep it there. She then gingerly put it down. "What's happening to me? My skin's indestructible, I have the strength of Hercules, I'm a freak!"

Hikaru approached. "You're not a freak, Akari," he reassured. "After all, you didn't get these abilities out of nowhere!" He reached down and lifted the beam as well, warranting a mystified look from the girl. He set it down and smiled. "Actually, you got these abilities from me. On our date, last night, I gave them to you." She folded her arms and put on an annoyed face.

"Hikaru, that is impossible. You didn't do anything. I've got a genetic mutation or something." She rolled her eyes. Getting abilities from him? How arrogant! She would have smacked him if she expected anything to come of it. Still, he DID just display the same powers.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet. Zipping it open, he produced the vial. "Akari, let me explain from the start." She looked in awe at the liquid-like mass of nanotechnology. "When I was eight years old, Akira and myself were playing in a field in the rural area I live. Some alien craft crash landed in the field, and right before it exploded, sprayed both of us with this stuff. Almost immediately we manifested our powers. His powers involve manipulating energy and mine are psionic. Akira even changed gender; you see, he was originally born a girl." He replaced both the wallet and the nanites. "Neither of us asked for these abilities, and they can be a pain in the ass. But you see, I think we were meant to do great things with our powers."

Akari got upset. "If you think they're a pain in the ass sometimes, why'd you burden me with them? I very easily could have killed my father when I punched him!"

Hikaru drew closer and hugged her. "Akari, I can't bear to think you might get hurt. I care about you. You could get injured; I can't stand that thought." He released her. "Sorry if I put an unnecessary burden on you, but I don't want something to happen to you."

She rolled her eyes, and pulled him back into an embrace. "So, you're worried about me getting hurt, so you make me indestructible. Isn't THAT just a guy's way of handling the situation."

"You're in a very different situation now than you were yesterday, Akari," a voice cried out. Both Hikaru and the girl looked over.

"Akira! How long've you been there?" Hikaru asked.

He approached, levitating the beam a few feet off the ground by manipulating its kinetic energy in the upwards direction. The wind going up could be felt. "You're going to have to handle using your powers like you'd handle having a deadly weapon, except this one will be with you at all times." He grinned. "But then, I guess we can talk more about that later." He turned to his fair-haired friend. "Hikaru, let's go to your place. I want you to play me and two Go players I know so that you can have three games played for the insei test."

Hikaru laughed. "Akira, you don't seriously think I'm good enough to try for it right now, do you?"

He put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Hikaru, please. If you can fight me on equal terms, you're ready to be an insei. Anyway, I'll pay your entrance fee. Just get your mother to approve."

Akari donned a wide smile. "Hikaru! Let me come! You can show me how to use my powers!"

Hikaru struck his forehead with the palm of his hand. "Ah, I should've known this was going to happen, annoying girl."

Akari got upset. "What did you call me?"

"I like you, Akari, but you're annoying sometimes." He took off at supersonic speeds. "Try to keep up, annoying girl!"

Akari shot off like a bullet as well. "I'll show you who's fast, irritating boy!"

Akira grinned. "Hikaru, you're not a ladies man at all," he said to himself. He picked up his phone and made a call. "Is the suit ready? Good. I'll be back at company headquarters to pick it up. It had better have all the requested additions." He hung up and left, flying off.

The farm boy and the city girl tore across the countryside, leaving only after-images in their wake. Both of them shot taunts at each other, one gaining ground for a few seconds, the other passing up, and the cycle repeating. Akari decided to take the lead, doing a leap mid-run. She cleared at least a mile, landing on her feet and still running. Hikaru, not one to be outdone, did a leap, except he flipped midair, springing with his hands off the roof of a barn, to gain an additional half mile of distance, landing several hundred yards in front of the girl. He turned and gave a raspberry while running, barely missing hitting a tree. Angry at being outdone, Akari punched the tree the boy nearly ran into, splintering it at the point of impact and causing it to tumble over.

"Oooh, is the annoying girl angry that I can jump farther? Eat my dust, Akari!"

Akari donned a devilish grin. "You just wait, irritating boy!"

Hikaru turned to see how far back she was, and saw the burnt-out husk of an abandoned vehicle sailing towards him at high velocity. He kicked it straight up into the air, causing it to be out of sight in a matter of less than a second. In the small moment of doing this, however, she passed him by at tremendous speed. He sneered. "So, THAT'S how you want to play it, huh?" He leapt into the air, taking flight. She might run as fast as him but she couldn't fly yet.

Akari slowed to a stop very quickly as she arrived at the Shindo farm. She noticed the boy already there, eating some meat on a stick. "Hikaru! How did you get here so...wait a minute...is that that one type of meat they only sell at..."

Hikaru smiled. "Yup. In the time it took you to get to my house, I flew 800 kilometers to pick up a snack and back again before you got here."

She folded her arms. "Fine, you win, irritating boy." Her angry frown turned into a smile and soon, they both were laughing.

The wind picked up around them and both shielded their eyes from dust. A large metallic suit touched down on the Shindo farm. It was large and yellowish-green, with a large orb-like projection on the abdomen area of it, and it had metallic tubes that fed into a helmet that Akira wore. "Hey, guys! What do you think of my new exo-suit? It's powered by energy I feed it! Plus, it only uses energy when I want it to do something, so there's no excess drain!" He took off the helmet and the suit opened up to let him out. He then levitated it to a safe spot behind the house. A helicopter landed shortly after him, and two mid-twenties Go players stepped out. Hikaru recognized one of them as a former insei that had turned professional, but decided not to seriously try to raise in rank. "Allow me to introduce Yuzaki 2 Dan and Omoshirai Beginner Dan." Each carried a goban. "This'll tell us if you're ready or not."


	7. Chapter 7

Aphrodisiac for the Wicked  
by Moonraker One

CHAPTER SEVEN

Hikaru directed the two professional go players upstairs to his room. In the meantime, he grabbed a bite from the kitchen table and waved to his parents as he prepared to meet his opponents. His mother stopped him. "Hikaru, are you sure that you've...you know...got everything under control?" Hikaru raised an eyebrow at her, in amazement of what she implied.

"You're saying that I can't keep my secrets under wraps?" he argued. "Trust me, I don't think there's any sort of problem." He noticed her concern, and softened his tone. "Please. Just trust me, ok?" At her smile, he returned the emotion and went upstairs. Without concern he tossed his pack to the bed and removed his hooded jacket to be comfortable in his yellowish shirt and black shorts. The players jockeyed for proper posture and waited for him to go with the formalities, which he did.

"I have to admit," Omoshirai admitted, "I haven't even heard of you before Akira-san paid us to do this little gaming exercise with you." He quickly amended his words. "Not that that's a bad thing, but it always helps to have a reputation going into the insei exams. They certainly helped us out, right, Yuzaki-san?" He opened his bowl and put the lid in front of it, glancing at his teammate.

Yuzaki shook his head. "Hikaru-kun, Akira puts up quite the fight against us one on one. He's yet to beat either of us, but I think he's a shoe-in for professional," he explained carefully, making sure not to over or under emphasize any one detail. "He speaks very highly of you, and says you two have a nearly tied record with him only a few wins ahead of you." He steeled his nerves; if this kid truly approached that closely to Akira's skill level, he'd have to do quite a lot to cleanly overcome him.

Hikaru scratched the back of his head, giving an awkward laugh. "Yes, well, Akira does like to speak highly of his friends. I'd rather think of how he plays so much better offensively, compared to my greater defensive skill at the game." Hikaru put down his first stone as black on Yuzaki's board. Then, as Omoshirai put down his first move, he responded quickly and then placed down on the more skilled of the two's board. This went back and forth for a good ten minutes before all sides began slowing down their paces to more skillfully think up their moves.

Akira, secure in the knowledge that his paid go instructors would give him a full run of the games, decided he would be instructing the girl in how to use her powers. She sat on a fence post and looked up at the sky while the dark haired boy collected his thoughts. "Listen here," he told the girl, "you have to be careful. Each of us has the capacity to do quite a bit of good, or quite a bit more harm. If you aren't careful, you could end up killing someone. It seems as though you've already discovered the most immediate powers we possess. Invulnerability, and in your case, super strength. However, there seems to be varying types of abilities, as I have manipulation of energy, while you only have the physical strength, like Hikaru. He also knows how to fly, while you don't. I don't, however, believe this is a random thing. I think you can fly as well as him and I." he levitated above the ground, independently of his suit, circled around, and touched down gingerly. "Close your eyes and imagine the Earth. Imagine all parts of the Earth, its crust, mantle, and core. Now imagine yourself on the surface."

She did as instructed. "Ok, I think I can see it." She focused on the core, and her body on the surface. "I can definitely feel something."

Akira smiled and nodded. "Good. Now, imagine yourself moving, and then open your eyes."

She floated a few inches off the ground, and when she opened her eyes, she came back down. "Akira! I floated!"

"You're a natural," he complimented. "Now let's practice on that."

Omoshirai wiped sweat from his brow. _Wow_, he thought. _I'm pushing him back at full strength and he's almost able to equal my strength. His go is quite powerful. He really is going to amount to something when he becomes professional_. "Hikaru, you're really as good as Akira says you are," he admitted. He put down a move, knowing full well that his foe might see the true purpose of it very quickly.

The farm boy nodded as he put down a move on Yuzaki's board. On this board he fought like hell to keep up. _Yuzaki truly deserves his ranking as a pro,_ he realized. _He's seriously trying to keep far ahead of me. The most I'm doing is closing the gap_. He cleared his throat and took a drink of an iced tea he made for himself. Akira always picked the best instructors to learn from, he believed. With much haste in deliberation, he placed a move on his other foe's board, attempting to fight off the feint that was the move played by Omoshirai. It truly struck him as a good fake, because if he hadn't seen the true objective clearly, he never would have realized that the stone was a sacrifice to gain more territory.

Within about thirty minutes of the floating, Akari Fujisaki gained full control of her flight abilities, and could freely move about the sky with her eyes open. She marveled at the raven haired boy so nonchalantly talking about such amazing abilities. "Akira, I know Hikaru showed me the nanites, but exactly what is the source of our powers?" She approached.

He looked all around, then back at her. "The primary source of power, is energy all around us. Heat, sunlight, electricity, motion, chemical, just about anything. Our cells process these energies into proteins that feed the psychic parts of our brain."

"So," she connected, "the psychic nature of our brain that powers the telekinesis, it's fed by energies from our cells?" She thought about it for a minute. "That means somewhere out there, there must be an opposite, a thing that saps us of this energy."

Akira looked away a moment, then back, pondering. "Yes, there could be, but I highly doubt it's a Kryptonite-type thing, because high-energy radiation is destructive to all living organisms. If it hurt us it would hurt ordinary people as well." He patted her on the shoulder. "This world has laws of physics preventing such radiation."

She nodded. "That makes sense." She leaned her head against the post. "Hikaru, I think he's annoying sometimes, he always calls me 'annoying girl,' or 'stupid.' It's just so immature."

The rich teenager shrugged. "Perhaps its his way of dealing with girls since he isn't much of a 'ladies' man' in the communication area." He prepared to head in the house, believing the game to be long over by this point. He smiled at Hikaru's parents and ate an apple they gave to him. The professionals came down the stairs, carrying their boards in their hands.

Omoshirai preempted his partner. "Hikaru came within one point of tying my score, and lost to Yuzaki here by a mere five points." He wiped his eyes a moment. "He's just about what you say of him. I see you two both making it this year, based on this performance." He headed out the door.

Yuzaki added, "You're the son of a champion player. This kid is a farm boy. It might sound prejudiced, but how did he get nearly as good as you?"

Hikaru laughed, rather than get offended. "Well, when he first told me about the game, I thought it was stupid, but then we just started playing each other over and over again, and that's how."

Akira and his two go instructors shared a laugh, then he turned to Hikaru's parents and said, "Well, Mister and missus Shindo, I'm glad to have this opportunity. We'll be making our exit now." They respectfully took their leave, and exited. Akari flew back to the city to get started on her homework. Hikaru sat down at the dinner table and had the rest of his meal. His mother sat down near him.

"Son, I'm proud of you," she admitted, "and I've believed for the longest time you'll make a great Go player, but you have to remember to keep balance in your life."

He gave them an annoyed look. "Mom, I think I can balance farm work with my professional games if I make it." He finished his tea.

His mother smiled. _Good,_ she noticed, _he's not getting arrogant. He said "if" and not "when." _"Hikaru, you know I'm not talking about that." He looked up at her, his eyes widening when he realized what she meant. "Now, son, don't look at me like that. I know what you want. I'm just saying be careful."

"Mom," he retorted, "Akira and I were given amazing abilities. If we weren't meant to do great things with them, then why'd we get them? Are you saying I couldn't be someone who contributed to the greater good with these powers of mine?"

She put her hands on his shoulders. "Hikaru, I'm positive you can become a great man. I just don't want the powers to get in the way of your life. You have your own life; in these superhero stories, the act of fighting the 'bad guys' is the full time job of these characters. You're a real person with a real future. Don't get caught up in the glory such acts might bring you."

He looked at her like she was nuts. "Come on now. Just because I'm a farm boy with superpowers, don't confuse me with Superman. One, I was born here, and two, I'm not stupid enough to be some vigilante who believes he's the only one capable of protecting people. I'm not interested in 'saving the day,' I just want to be able to help people who can't help themselves."

His father interjected, "and you'll be great at it. But don't be upset when you can't save them all."

He leaned back in his chair. They did have a point, he realized. "Yeah, I get it." He poured himself some more tea and emptied it quickly. "Thanks for the advice." He headed outside to perform some repair work on the fence. His ability to move at incredible speeds enabled him to finish the task very quickly, and he went back upstairs to finish his homework.

As Hikaru played games against his computer, and won most of them, he went on the internet and played a game against some Chinese amateurs, losing five and winning eight. From there, he studied some games from the past on the historical record sites. He thought of what his mother told him. He didn't understand what it meant to be the kind of superhero he read about. He didn't have the experience. Yet, he wanted to know what it felt like. He turned on the national news of Japan for an event he could get involved in. He saw some petty crimes, but he really wanted to involve himself in a major event, just for the sake of learning, and nothing impressed him. He then turned to the major news organizations of the world. _Hmm_, he noticed. _A United States embassy in Pakistan is under assault by terrorists. Maybe I could get involved._ He looked up the location of the embassy on the internet. He grinned. Perhaps he was being impulsive, but he wanted to see what he was capable of. He took the GPS navigation unit in his hands.

He glided out the window and when he was a safe distance from the house, and his parents were asleep, he took off at thousands of miles per hour. At his speed, he'd travel the eight thousand miles in roughly twelve minutes. The ocean, landmasses, and scenery, passed by like blurs as he raced towards his destination. Once he got to the city in the middle eastern country, he looked around for the building, and took notice of it, for it was the only one with a large group of military vehicles outside, unable to enter. The lives at stake prevented such. He flew in at incredible speeds, making sure no one saw his entrance.

One of the masked men took notice, and aimed his machine gun. Hikaru began sweating as his heart rate accelerated. His limbs seemed frozen; despite knowledge of his invulnerability, he still had the mind of someone his age. The guns and men terrified him out of his wits. Languages he couldn't comprehend were shouted as he tried to force himself to move. Finally, bullets were fired in his direction. He wanted to close his eyes and hope it would go away. As he thought of himself as a coward, he realized what he needed to do. _Damn it all,_ _I need to act, I need to ACT!_

Finally, out of sheer force of will, he forced his hands to move. Deflecting the shots effortlessly, he then managed to force his feet to carry him over to the masked man who fired at him. He delivered several jabs to the man's abdomen, making sure to carefully tone down his immense strength so as not to kill them. Each time he wanted to both run in fear and keep going in anger. Once he'd redirected enough of his fear into anger to overcome himself and get his adrenaline moving, he grabbed the collar of the man's bulletproof vest and chucked him into the wall, the force of which knocked him out. It hit him he wasn't thinking; he was acting on impulse and his adrenaline rush. In go, this would be unacceptable. Still, he didn't have the will to force himself to calm down. He reacted impulsively, using his powers to quickly incapacitate the masked men. To get the attention of the soldiers outside, he ripped a phone from the wall and chucked it out the window. Then, after ascertaining that the civilians were unharmed, he quickly high-tailed it out of there.

Upon gingerly touching down in his room through the window, way back in Japan's agricultural districts, he quickly took off his clothes and examined himself to ensure he didn't have any injuries, and checked his clothes for holes. He realized he hadn't taken any wounds, then he fell backwards on his bed, breathing heavily. _Damn it, they were right. I'm not ready._ He shook his head. Despite knowing the bullets wouldn't hurt him, something of a natural fear of weapons brought sheer terror out of him. The faults came to him almost at once: his impulsive, emotional-driven actions could have resulted in an innocent dying. He'd have to work himself to the point he could think calmly in a desperate situation.

_I have to get as good at thinking on my feet in action as I am in Go_, it struck him. A second thought hit him, and he nearly shouted in horror before he cupped his mouth to silence himself before otherwise waking his parents: he didn't stop to make sure no one had seen him. _Dammit!_ He covered his eyes a moment. _I didn't think of that!_

Back in the middle east, outside the embassy, a soldier sat down with his commander. "General Stamsand, I assure you, it wasn't me. We were locked up in the closet and there was a guy guarding us. It wasn't until he got distracted by the window blowing out that we were able to get out."

The general brushed his mustache with his hand. "So, who did then?"

"You...you're gonna think I'm some kinda crazy, sir," he began, "but I only saw him for like, a second. He moved faster than any person I've ever seen. He was like a blur. Like the Flash, I'm serious. He pushed bullets away with his hands, then beat up all the guys who were armed to the teeth." He rubbed a bruise. "He was terrified by the guns, at first, flinching, and that's when I saw his face, but he got over it quickly..." he looked at his commander. "I'm never gonna forget that face. He...he wasn't normal, I'll say that. He saved our asses, but he was something else."

"Lieutenant, can you describe his appearance?"

The lieutenant laughed. "Sir, I could draw you an image if you like. He was some Asian kid, really scrawny, couldn't be over five foot nine, got short dark hair with blonde bangs." He thought a minute. "Looking at his facial features, I'd say Japanese." He pulled out a sheet of paper, and drew an image.

The general took the pencil drawing in his hand. _Who are you_, he wondered.

Hikaru slumbered back at home, thousands of miles away, completely unaware of what had transpired after he left.


	8. Chapter 8

Aphrodisiac for the Wicked  
by Moonraker One

CHAPTER EIGHT

Hikaru made his way to the inside of the school building feeling rather melancholy. It weighed on his mind that he had been unable to think clearly in the heart of battle. In Go, he could strategize with the best of them. But, despite knowing that the bullets from the guns he was staring down last night would not harm him, they froze him in terror. This hit his ego hard. However, he refused to leave it at that; he assured himself that he would work to overcome this psychological speed bump. If he ever would be what he wanted to be, it would make a confidence boost of this kind a necessity. Still, he didn't want to bash himself too hard; guns were a scary thing to stare down. Another scary thing to stare down, he knew, was a history test when he hadn't studied very hard.

_Yeesh_, he thought, along with the other thoughts that day. _I really don't like having to worry about both my abilities and school work_. He rolled his eyes as he realized the pointlessness of his complaining. _Great. Now I'm turning into an emo kid. Lovely_. He saw a jagged, sharp edge of a desk leg that had been broken but not fixed. He pushed on the sharp point of metal with his palm. Just as expected, the iron crumpled backwards until it didn't stick out so far, and he looked at his hand. The familiar lack of damage from his nearly indestructible aura reminded him of the facts: complaining would accomplish nothing, and his abilities were here to be used.

He finished the test without cheating. The temptation to use his powers to cheat proved formidable, yet he overcame it as a self-improvement exercise. The other classes of the day passed with very few interesting events occurring. He strolled towards the part of town where he would duck behind a building to get out of sight before taking off at superhuman speeds. This time, however, he saw a gathering of about fifteen or so rough-looking punks of varied age and appearance at the far end of the alley he usually used. Since they had seen him, he couldn't exactly just leave, at least in his own mind. Setting his backpack behind a trash can, he decided, rather rashly, to get some exercise.

"Hello, gentlemen," he said, a partial smile on his face as he nonchalantly strolled towards the group. In his mind, he'd been confused with a torrent of concerns all day; why not take out some aggression on people that probably deserved it? Yet, at the same time, fear struck him. And it occurred to him that he didn't quite realize what he was doing.

Very predictably, the tallest and most muscular of the group regarded the young Hikaru with laughter and disrespect. "You're in a very bad position, kid," he boasted, drawing a knife from his pocket. "I think to cross this bridge back into the little world you crawled out of, the toll is whatever's in that backpack of yours, and your wallet!"

Hikaru grinned, popping his knuckles with a fist clench. "You see, I'm rather fond of my backpack and wallet, and I think that, in order to pass through this gate back to the hellhole you guys put yourselves in," he looked at a younger member, approximately his age and height, "will be that leather jacket that one's wearing." The young gang member laughed.

"You don't seem to realize that there's about fifteen of us, and one of you," the kid reminded Hikaru. "Plus, we've got knives and boss has a pistol he stole. What do you have?"

The young would-be superhero's grin widened. "Well, I've got armor. It's less than a millimeter thick but there's nothing in the world that can punch through it. Also, I've got a brain that makes me stronger than all you punks put together." His brave, arrogant display was nothing but; in truth, he was shivering inside but hid it well. _Holy crap, I'm really doing this_! His thoughts were a repetition of that as his heart rate increased. Still, he kept the illusion up.

"Your funeral," one of them yelled right before charging Hikaru with his knife. As his brain stormed, the young warrior forced himself to remain calm and rational. Resisting the temptation to give into random thoughts, he grabbed the wrist with the knife a few centimeters from tearing his shirt, and smacked the guy on the forehead with an open palm. He saw the man fall unconscious with the force of the blow. It was an irrevocable act of war that started a chain reaction.

It started with the leader crying, "You're a dead man!" and the group all rushed him at once. Hikaru carefully made sure to use only enough strength to send them flying into trash cans or walls but not kill them. He had just finished tripping a guy onto his back, and grabbing a guy and flipping him overhead to land behind him, when he turned back around and stared down the barrel of a forty-four magnum. He tried to avoid his heart skipping a beat as he saw the trigger squeeze. _Dammit, I'm locking up again! I've got to overcome my fear of guns! Come on! It can't hurt me!_ His thoughts broke through the wall holding back willpower and regained his sanity once again. Switching to super speed, time slowed to a crawl as the bullet suddenly moved very slowly out of the gun barrel. He reached out at an incredible speed and wrapped his right hand around the bullet. He felt the lead slug impact against his hand. As time resumed again, he dropped the now-crushed bullet and struck the gang leader in the chest with just enough force to throw him back four feet.

The reality of the situation hit him as all the people lay unconscious. _Wow, I really did what I just did_! He wiped his face in amazement. _I thought I was going to die from the stress_! Carefully, he slid the jacket off the youngest member and onto his own body. "I need to do this more often," he whispered to himself as he went to the trash can and scooped his pack onto his shoulders. Lowering his breathing helped him return to a normal state of calm. The leather jacket draped around his torso with the red inner lining occasionally showing in the blowing wind served, at least to him, as a testament to his improved coping ability. As far as he knew, he still had a great deal of kinks to work out before he could stare down a weapon without clamming up.

Peering over the side of the wall, he found no prying eyes, and took off at an incredible speed. As he dashed across the Japanese countryside with the surroundings just a massive smudge of color, a familiar face caught up to him, flying a few feet above the ground. "Fancy meeting you here," Akari cheerfully announced.

"See you've gotten a better grip on your powers," he replied. "How about after I drop my stuff off at my house, we go out for a bit?"

"How far 'out' did you have in mind?" She hit the ground running and caught up with him. "And, is this a date?" She saw him start to blush and found it funny.

"No!" he loudly protested. "I just want to do something out of the ordinary! Why does it have to be a date?"

She laughed at him. "Then why're you turning red?"

"You can be so dumb, sometimes," he uttered.

She fumed at the insult. "What! How dare..."

He sneered and took off even faster. "See you."

"Hikaru!" she shouted. "Get back here!" She quickly zoomed off to equal his speed.

The two raced neck and neck across the miles of countryside between the major city and the small farming community, until the large wooden house appeared quickly out of the mass of color. The teens entered the house rather feverishly, with Hikaru heading upstairs. If it hadn't been for his mother shooting him a stern look, he would not have stopped. "Hikaru!" she uttered, stopping her son in his tracks. "Do you have all of your room cleaned up?"

"Yes, mom," he nonchalantly replied.

"Hikaru, I just want to make sure you're taking the little things seriously here." She took notice of Akari. "Why, hello, Miss Fujisaki! I wonder what brings you here?"

"Oh, I just wanted to spend some time with Hikaru." She scratched her head, nervously. "Nothing much."

"As long as both of you are minding your place, I don't think there'll be a problem."

Hikaru gave his mother a hinting look. "There won't be any problems, mother," he said, in a somewhat imposing tone. Then he went up to his room, with Akari following. He dropped his pack onto his bed, carelessly letting the books slide out and scatter across the floor. He turned to his female friend. "Now, let's get out for a bit."

She folded her arms. "Seriously, Hikaru, you're always too nonchalant about everything! When are you going to get serious?" He always had that playful way of going about everything. Ever since she knew him, he'd always acted the same. It bugged her.

He dashed towards his room's window and took a considerable leap, taking flight moments after exiting his room. Not one to be outdone, Akari quickly followed suit. She caught up to him—despite his incredible speed—and followed him. "You know, you don't think twice, do you, Hikaru?"

Hikaru laughed. "Come on, Akari, if it isn't Go, what's the point of getting worked up over it?"

"What happened to Akira," she reminded him, "turning into a boy from being a girl? Something like that could have happened to me. You didn't worry about that, now did you?"

"I was worried your dad might hurt you," he defended, "and besides, you're still the way you were, so what's the harm?"

She slapped him. "You idiot! It isn't about what happened! It's about what could have happened!" She shifted her head left and right, not wanting to admit the obvious. He grinned as he saw her conflicted mood; she looked cute when she was worried. "But...I never got to thank you." he laughed a bit and she got angry at him. "What? You think this is a joke? I'm serious here!"

He waved her off. "No, I'm just noticing how you look kind of adorable when you get all nervous like that. Like a cat that doesn't know what to do next." As she started to get peeved again, he smiled. "See? Even when you're angry it's kind of cute. I wanted to show you something. Follow me."

She rolled her eyes. "Where are we going?"

"You've never been to the more exotic places in Japan," he told her. "There are some amazing things outside of the doldrum of our neck of the woods."

In an office building quite a distance away, two figures sat in a brightly-lit room. One was the heir to the gaming corporation, his name being Akira Toya. The other was a scientist affiliated with Sai's work, having finished the last bit of a test on the DNA pattern of the teen. "I've figured out why the alien technology changed your gender, Toya-san," he commented. The young man put his business shirt and tie back on.

"Oh?" he inquired. This information, he'd waited several years for. "What can we blame it on?"

"According to how the nanites work, they assemble the brain's structure in the easiest manner for the abilities coded into them," the scientist explained. "Apparently, your brain pattern and DNA were incompatible as they were, so the technology performed the simplest action necessary to generate extra-human abilities." He looked at the screen again. "But the energy readings indicate your body was already in prime condition for the abilities you have; only the structures needed to be changed."

"Thank you," Toya commented, "that will be all." Quickly tapping buttons on his phone, he sent a text message to a contact of his. Then he stepped out of the building for an evening to himself. He thought of Hikaru, and how the young farm boy would be the biggest threat to his own Go career. Still, he had more faith in himself because of his background.

_This time,_ he thought, _I will go all out. I will make sure the world, and especially Hikaru, sees that my Go aspirations are not to be taken lightly!_


End file.
